Present for Alexander
by delos13
Summary: Ever wondered what Alexander's closest companions did while their king and his soul mate were spending some quality time together? Here is one of the possibilities.


_A/N:__ This story is my present for Alexander's birthday. Well, not my present exactly but… well, you have to read the story…. I hope you enjoy. Readers' comments are warmly accepted and appreciated. _

Warnings: some foul language, but hey, what exactly would you expect from Macedonian pack of alpha males?

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"You are late!" Eumenes said reproachfully to Philotas who entered the premises with a swagger.

The general gave a quick look at all the assembled and, scoffing, stated the obvious, "I am not. Alexander is not here."

"Alexander is not here because he is not supposed to be here," the secretary informed him tersely, not bothering to hide his irritation.

"We are not plotting against our king or something?" with obvious irony inquired son of Parmenion.

"Relax," in a friendly manner suggested Coenus, "it is not that sort of plotting that will make us all a head shorter, it's a friendly plotting."

"If you say so," yawned Philotas, "so, what's it about? I really don't have any time for useless get-togethers, I would rather spend it f**king my mistress. And where is that lapdog Hephaistion?"

"Philotas!" barked Perdiccas, "watch your dirty mouth or I'll make sure you won't have any equipment to play games with your red-headed slut."

"I don't give a shit about your threats," Philotas shrugged his shoulders and stared with defiance at Perdiccas.

"Parmenion, you either rein in your son, or I will do," threatened Krateros who couldn't stand Philotas at the best of times.

"I am not five years old to be punished by my father!" retorted Philotas.

"Then behave like one," suggested Leonnatos.

"I didn't ask for your opinion," scoffed Philotas not caring about the fact that he was alienating everybody around him yet again.

"Shut the fuck up!" thundered Eumenes and smashed his fist with such a force on the table that the movement sent a bronze cup, filled to its brim with a precious wine, flying to the floor, clattering and spilling wine all around.

"That went well," commented Black Kleitos trying to sound amused though he was not, "now, Philotas, it's really your choice, either go back from where you came, or stay here, but in that case, remember, we invited you as a curtesy to your father and not because we thought you can contribute anything valuable to the matter at hand."

"And what is this matter at hand?" asked Philotas not showing any sign of regret.

"Seeing as how Alexander is eager to adopt pompous customs of the barbarians we conquered, we decided to look into our own, Macedonian past and revive some old, forgotten rituals that may gladden Alexander's heart and satisfy his ego."

"Oh, yes?" laughed Philotas, "and what did you discover?"

"It actually was Eumenes," conceded Black Kleitos.

"You can always count on foreign wannabes…" Philotas just didn't know when to quit.

"Philotas!" Parmenion at last realized that his son wasn't doing any favors to the family, "if you don't know how to cooperate with others, I suggest to Alexander to take Companion Cavalry from your hands and give it to Black Kleitos and…. Hephaistion."

"Fat chance!" scoffed Philotas, "Alexander will never do such a thing; he knows there is no one better than I to lead the unit. But I digress, what did you manage to discover, Eumenes?"

"Long time ago Macedonians had a very interesting tradition of celebrating their kings' birthdays."

"Why?"

"So that they could give their king presents without being accused of sucking up to the sovereign," clarified Ptolemy.

"That was rich, coming from the sucking up specialist," jabbed Parmenion's son.

"Then, I guess, I'll have no reason to feel guilty if I pass your sentiments to Alexander?" quietly inquired Ptolemy.

"Believe it or not, I have important things to do," Eumenes said to nobody in particular, "you either listen to what I have to say or I am out of here. Zeus strike me with his thunderbolt on the spot if Alexander ever dies and leaves you squabbling over his empire."

"Don't say such a thing," gravely advised Parmenion. "Now, Philotas, can you show some maturity here and cooperate with others?"

Philotas pressed his lips into almost invisible line and turned his head away from where his father was standing.

"Thank you, general," Eumenes said in an appreciative tone, "now, for the undeserving benefit of our querulous latecomer, I am going to repeat what we agreed upon so far."

Philotas rolled his eyes at this obvious stab but managed to remain silent.

Eumenes continued, "We are going to reintroduce the tradition of celebrating king's birthday and it will be done on the level befitting our great King."

"Aren't we a little early with our ass-kissing? Alexander's birthday is months ahead," commented Philotas not even trying to sound reconciliatory.

"Nothing beats a careful preparation. We don't want to leave it to the last moment and given our king's propensity not to dwell too long in the same place, we want to use this opportunity of staying in Persepolis to use all available means at our disposal."

"All available means for what?" Philotas managed to utter a single phrase without insulting anybody.

"In order to avoid additional rivalry, we decided to prepare one present from all of us. This present is going to be a series of new coins, minted with the likeness of Alexander to commemorate his glorious achievements, a truly royal present. The heroic image of Alexander will be on the obverse of the new coins, we just have to agree on the images on the reverse. We were going to discuss some ideas when you, Philotas, deigned to bless us with your presence."

"I say we should depict Philip on the other side," suggested Kleitos, "Alexander would never achieve such victories without the army created by his father."

"Should I remind you that Alexander was proclaimed a divine son of Ammon-Zeus?" said so far silent Aristander, a favorite Seer of the king.

Kleitos scoffed, "What a bullshit!"

"I would think twice before offending both Ammon-Zeus and Alexander in such a way," advised Ptolemy.

"And I would think thrice before recognizing any child of Thais as your own. The woman slept with half of Athens and I am sure her behaviour didn't change much when she stepped on this barbarian soil."

"Unlike you, I AM capable of begetting offsprings of my own," calmly stated Ptolemy.

Eumenes clapped his hands loudly in irritation to draw the attention back to the subject, "Can we move on? I don't have the whole day."

"Who needs your presence anyway?" asked Neoptolemos, one of the troublesome hetairoi.

"You're free to leave any time," calmly responded Eumenes. Neoptolemos was not high enough among king's companions to deserve any special reprimand.

"We should depict Alexander on one side and Darius running from the battlefield on the other," suggested Krateros.

"Not politically correct," objected Eumenes, "we want this new coinage to be used throughout all of the empire."

"How about Alexander on one side and Cleopatra, his sister, on the other? Just like the divine twins, Apollo and Artemis," suggested Leonnatos.

"Alexander and Cleopatra are not twins, besides, I don't remember her being proclaimed daughter of Zeus," reminded Perdiccas, "but I do remember you liking her. Hoping to get her special attention now, that she is a widow?"

"This is so not true," too vehemently for anybody to believe him denied Leonnatos.

"Let's ask Philotas," suddenly suggested Coenus, "sure he has the most unbiased opinion on the matter."

The son of Parmenion looked appraisingly at his brother-in-law. He had little doubt the suggestion was meant to be a trap but despite his ugly character, Philotas was a talented tactician.

"It's not so difficult, especially if you want to please Alexander," suggested Philotas, "Just mint the image of Hephaistion on the other side. Preferably naked."

"I asked for only serious ideas," reminded Eumenes.

"I am dead serious," Philotas didn't flinch, "just imagine the popularity of those coins. We can ask Apelles to come up with a sketch."

"Any SERIOUS ideas?" insisted Eumenes.

"How about Alexander on one side and Dionysus on the other?"

"Thank you, Aristander. At last some meaningful suggestion to consider."

"I still think we should commemorate Alexander's military glory," insisted Krateros, "if you don't want to portray fleeing Darius, how about walls of Tyre razed to the ground?"

"As I said before, it won't sit well with locals," reminded Eumenes.

"Wait, wait, I think Krateros is onto something," said Perdiccas, "we can kill two birds with one stone. We simply depict destroyed city and write "Tyre" in Macedonian to the right, "Thebes" in Persian to the left and, to cover all the bases, "Troy" in Greek on top. Everybody is happy."

"Everybody is unhappy," snapped Eumenes, "Ever heard of translators?"

"Fine," Perdiccas took offence, "it is easy to criticize others. Do YOU have anything to offer?"

"If you bothered to remember, it was I who came up with idea of this special coinage. I alone. And the whole bunch of you can't figure out what to put of those coins. Thanks gods none of you will ever have a reason to issue your own coinage. Parmenion, as the most senior here, do you have any sound ideas?"

"How about Olympias?"

"Damn, why I even asked!"

"Why we didn't invite Hephaistion? For sure he would know what will please Alexander," said Leonnatos.

"Because Erigyius here suggested that we should prove to Alexander that Hephaistion is not the only one who knows what our king wants; I have to admit that so far we spectacularly managed to prove the opposite."

"This is absolutely not true," Erigyius tried to excuse himself, "I mean, yes, I suggested we do it without Hephaistion and since we all agreed on that, it will be stupid now to ask for his advice. Besides, we put forward many great ideas, we just can't agree which one to choose."

"Great ideas?" scoffed Eumenes, "Did I fell asleep and missed the important part? What great ideas? Apart from depicting Dionysus on the other side, which is sound but not very much original, I don't remember anything worth mentioning."

"We can depict Bucephalus," offered Leonnatos, "Alexander will be happy."

"Now we getting somewhere," the secretary nodded with approval.

"We can show contours of the city and write "Alexandria" above," proposed Ptolemy. "It will be a popular image and, considering there is a new Alexandria established somewhere at least once a year, it never will be out of circulation."

"Yes, Ptolemy, thank you, it is far better than anything you said so far. Other worthy ideas?"

"We can depict Alexander on both sides of the coin. On one side as Achilles and on another – as Heracles," suggested Philotas.

"And here I thought you were begrudging Ptolemy his ability to suck up," commented Eumenes.

Philotas shrugged his shoulders but said nothing.

"I think we can stop now and agree to issue coins with all four images," suggested Parmenion, "Alexander will tell us which one he likes most, or maybe he'll like all of them equally. The real problem is, how do we go about the business of minting the coins without Alexander knowing about it?"

"I can handle the minting part, if only I knew how to get the raw material," said the secretary.

"With all the treasures of Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, you lack raw material, Eumenes?" asked Perdiccas in disbelieve.

"You know how Alexander is obsessed with preserving the culture of the people he conquered," Eumenes reminded everybody. "I have to account to Alexander for every damaged article. If only the Persian kept their gold and silver in bricks, but no! They have to forge those ugly things they call art. Look at all those tasteless and vulgar images. If only I can find a way to melt them all, it will be more than enough for the new coins, but Alexander will never agree to something like that."

"Then we wouldn't tell him," suggested Ptolemy.

"Easy for you to say, it is my head that on the block."

"Not necessarily, we can make it look like an accident."

"Accident? What kind of accident?"

"Well, I don't know. Say, fire somehow brakes out in the palace, preferably close to the quarters where all the treasures are. It melts all those gaudy trinkets and nobody is to blame, or we can arrange for some locals to take the fall."

"It must be some conflagration…." Eumenes mused, "and Persepolis palace is so huge!"

"I can handle huge," assured him Ptolemy.


End file.
